FVS life build conflictions

[Chaoscheerio]

At the moment I'm about 200k xp until heroic cap and while I have some time to spare due to the maintenance today I figured I'd ask for some advice about the Favoured Soul life I'm planning to do when I cap.

This will be life #10(past lives: 2 Clr,Ftr,Arti,Rgr,Rogue,Wiz,Mnk,Drd)

The internal conflict I'm having is between three builds at the moment, all of which I've tested out in a character planner and honestly they all seem very viable for leveling, so I'm seeking people who have experience with any of them to tell me exactly how they went, if they were fun/easy to level, and which they'd prefer if they were in my shoes.
Side note, all three plan to take the monk active past life feat. I love unarmed.
edit: All are human too with the dragonmark of passage. Love my ddoor clicky.
16FVS/2Mnk/2Ftr - Two extra feats to make me feel less starved, includes Maximize and Quicken for Divine Punishment and quickened Heals. Melee focused, but as noted, enough spell casting ability for damage. All points into wisdom for Stunning Fist DCs. Benefits from the first two tiers of Kensei enhancements quite a lot; notably haste boost and improved tactics.
16FVS/2Mnk/2Pally - Same as the first but a little more feat starved in order to fit in divine grace. Paladin enhances are lackluster compared to kensei, unfortunately.
18FVS/2Mnk - Different from the first two in that I keep the extra two FVS levels in order to get much more casting potential as I level; notably for better blade barriers and flame strikes. Unfortunately, casting ability would be lacking in terms of CC due to lack of spell pen and empower. Still largely melee.

All three look super fun to me, but more or less I'm just interested in trying out the Warpriest enhancement line finally, since my last cleric life was pre-U19. If anyone has any insight into what might work well or better when leveling I'd love to hear it. Keep in mind this is ONLY for leveling to 20 to get the past life. But if it winds up being incredible fun it's possible I will carry the build into epics for a while. Thanks for the possible insight C:

[Ailia]

16FVS/2Mnk/2Pally - Same as the first but a little more feat starved in order to fit in divine grace. Paladin enhances are lackluster compared to kensei, unfortunately.
18FVS/2Mnk - Different from the first two in that I keep the extra two FVS levels in order to get much more casting potential as I level; notably for better blade barriers and flame strikes. Unfortunately, casting ability would be lacking in terms of CC due to lack of spell pen and empower. Still largely melee.


I've played these to cap, along with pure, 18/2pal, and 17/2pal/1ftr. Given you want unarmed, monk PL and dragonmark, I'de go with the monk/pally. Haste boost makes a difference in the early levels, but as soon as you get blade barrier it will take over the majority of your offense until level 18-19 due to how powerful the AoV tree is.

Expected feat list would be:
PA
twf
itwf
gtwf
maximize
empower
quicken
Stunning Fist
Monk PL
Dragonmark

Best candidate to drop if you want Improved critical is likely the monk PL.

A good alternative if you want a faster life would be to focus on Cleave/THF due to unarmed twf being weak in the early levels until around the point you get blade barrier, at which blade barrier mostly renders the unarmed irrelevant anyways, the melee aspect of FvS best shines before blade barrier and in epic levels. If you go this route, consider 17fvs/2pal/1ftr.

[Chaoscheerio]

I've played these to cap, along with pure, 18/2pal, and 17/2pal/1ftr. Given you want unarmed, monk PL and dragonmark, I'de go with the monk/pally. Haste boost makes a difference in the early levels, but as soon as you get blade barrier it will take over the majority of your offense until level 18-19 due to how powerful the AoV tree is.

I hadn't even considered the AoV tree. I was mainly thinking of human and warpriest, what makes the AoV tree shine so bright?

[ArcaneArcher52689]

I hadn't even considered the AoV tree. I was mainly thinking of human and warpriest, what makes the AoV tree shine so bright?


Best spell power scaling available, 1USP/AP +30 Fire/force/light/physical SP for casting those spells
Best chance of temporary spell points(10 at a time)
Best crit chance for fire, force, and light spells- 8% available in tree
Best "free" spell DPS in the game in form of Archon (which powers up the aforementioned spellpower and spell points, and benefits from the spell power and crit chance)
Offers the best scaling to CL/MCL to fire/force/light spells, +3 for 9 AP(6 t4, 3 t5)
Spellpower Action boost- 30sp for 3ap
Wand and scroll mastery


Basically, the AoV tree, despite lacking SLA's, is probably the most synergistic casting tree there is. All of its abilities work together to make a bunch of okay/good effects into great ones.

[Ailia]

Best spell power scaling available, 1USP/AP +30 Fire/force/light/physical SP for casting those spells
Best chance of temporary spell points(10 at a time)
Best crit chance for fire, force, and light spells- 8% available in tree
Best "free" spell DPS in the game in form of Archon (which powers up the aforementioned spellpower and spell points, and benefits from the spell power and crit chance)
Offers the best scaling to CL/MCL to fire/force/light spells, +3 for 9 AP(6 t4, 3 t5)
Spellpower Action boost- 30sp for 3ap
Wand and scroll mastery


Basically, the AoV tree, despite lacking SLA's, is probably the most synergistic casting tree there is. All of its abilities work together to make a bunch of okay/good effects into great ones.

Essentially all of this, plus even more synergies in play for epic levels such as the Lantern Ring, Divine Crusader used along with Energy Burst and Ruin for some catastrophic spell damage, even with dumped caster stats.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/444031-Heavy-Hybrid-SWF-Soul-(U22-U23)
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/440115-Shoikan-A-Divine-Crusader-Warpriest
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/422628-U19-Nova-Soul-Direct-Damage-FVS
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/441521-Vislys-An-EE-Focused-FvS-Caster-Build
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/440475-Bladed-Crusader-%28Bladeforged-Fvs-18-Pal-2%29

Melee, ranged, really doesn't matter in terms of build direction, the synergies are strong enough that AoV really is what makes Favored Soul perform, else it would just be a cleric without free healing. Even the last one, a Tier 5 warpriest goes far enough into AoV for Archon and its synergies.

[SirValentine]

At the moment I'm about 200k xp until heroic cap and while I have some time to spare due to the maintenance today I figured I'd ask for some advice about the Favoured Soul life I'm planning to do when I cap.
18FVS/2Mnk - Different from the first two in that I keep the extra two FVS levels in order to get much more casting potential as I level; notably for better blade barriers and flame strikes. Unfortunately, casting ability would be lacking in terms of CC due to lack of spell pen and empower.


For a mostly-melee-just-for-the-past life, you might be reading too much into this.

Most mobs don't have a lot of Spell Resistance; the few that do, you can use your Stunning Fist and/or Cometfall for CC. So I wouldn't worry about your Spell Pen.

And, really, Empower you can live without just fine. Sure, a little less spell power, but also cheaper SP costs. Mobs have to get hit by Blade Barrier 3 times instead of 2? Not a big deal. Especially if you're also able to do some melee DPS on the side.

[SirValentine]

Melee, ranged, really doesn't matter in terms of build direction, the synergies are strong enough that AoV really is what makes Favored Soul perform, else it would just be a cleric without free healing. Even the last one, a Tier 5 warpriest goes far enough into AoV for Archon and its synergies.

Yes, all of what those previous posters said. Even if you put a lot into Warpriest, you should still be dropping a bunch into AoV, too.

[Chaoscheerio]

Thanks guys. I really appreciate the input... Think I might go for the pally build. All I'd really lose out on is dodge and mobility, which aren't that totally important as a heroic character anyway. The saves would make up for it I'd think.

I definitely appreciate the input about AoV, it's not something I'd considered before and now I definitely will check it out.

Edit: TR'd c: Decided to roll with 16FVS/2Pally/2Monk. I like the idea of having divine grace quite a lot.